Passport wait times slashed

Jason Ritter (right), his wife Ebony Anderson (second from right) and their family show the wear and tear as they get into the final stretch of the line-up for the Passport Office in Canada Place in Edmonton Jan 18/07 afternoon.

Maria and David Swain were in and out of Passport Canada in under an hour on Monday — unlike five years ago.

“I thought it was going to be a hell of a lot longer,” David said.

The Leduc residents waited two to three hours last time they got their passports, but a new “simplified renewal” has slashed wait times.

As of April 1, anyone whose name is exactly as it appears on the previous application for a passport, whose passport hasn’t been damaged lost or stolen, and was issued in Canada, no longer needs proof of Canadian citizenship, supplementary identification or guarantor information. People also must have been 16 years old at the time of the previous passport application.

On April 30, 2011 Canadians who got their passport in the United States got their own shortcut.

Now, people need two identical professional photos that meet Passport Canada requirements signed by the photo studio and a filled out form.

For a fee, passports can be sped up. Travellers that urgently need a passport can get one the same day for $220 at Passport Canada - in addition to the usual processing fee of $87.

Service Canada locations including Meadowlark Shopping Centre, Millbourne Market Mall and Northgate Centre can also process passports, although not through an expedited process. Those offices can turn around a passport in 20 business days, not including mail times.

In 2006 and 2007, people lined up outside Canada Place as early as 3:45 a.m. with a wait time of up to 60 days for passports.

The Swains’ passports arrived in time for a wedding in Dubai, but others were stranded by the wait times.

Maria said they took the scenic route travelling through England and Germany.

Now the couple is taking their 18-year-old son to Barbados.

He wasn’t tagging along on Monday, which would have meant a longer wait. He wasn’t 16 at the time of his last passport application.

A security guard, who declined to give his name, was third in line at 5:30 a.m. one morning around five years ago, waiting to get his passport for a trip to the Dominican Republic.

The former military man guessed there are an average of 30 or 50 per day five years ago, compared to 300 in 2007.